First of all I want to thank the members for the confidence that you have shown in me by electing me to be your president. I am especially honored to be following in the footsteps of George Brooks. We are indeed fortunate that George will remain a member of the board of the Coalition and will continue to keep our e-mail boxes filled with relevant information gleaned from widespread sources.

Last month (August 23rd) we commemorated the 75th anniversary of the execution of Sacco and Vanzetti. I can remember my father telling me about the Italian anarchists who were unjustly executed.

As reported in the AP story, Mary Anne Trasciatti, a rhetoric professor at New York's Hofstra University and a Sacco and Vanzetti expert, said there are many modem parallels to the case.

"The idea that the death penalty is used against minorities, against people of color, still exists — an enduring form of racism and xenophobia," she said. "The minorities here are no longer Italians, but now Arab Americans, African Americans, Hispanics — whoever happens to be perceived as the 'other.' "

Unfortunately we find it all too easy to believe that "Despite evidence of perjury by prosecution witnesses and murder confessions from other men after the trial, they were electrocuted on Aug. 23, 1927."

It is indeed sobering to realize that people in our country and throughout the world have been fighting the death penalty for all these years, and yet it is encouraging to realize that we are living in critical times. The Illinois moratorium, recent court decisions placing more limitations on capital punishment, and the shift in public opinion have given us an historic opportunity to end this barbaric practice. Illinois can and must lead the way to abolition. In the near term we must continue to encourage Governor Ryan to commute the sentences of all those who were sentenced to death by a system that is seriously flawed - "too flawed to fix".

It's not too early to register for the convention of the NCADP. The National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty's Annual Convention will be held in Chicago October 24-27. . The theme is "Restoring Justice, Reclaiming Humanity." For more information, visit the conference web site at:
http://www.ncadp.org/html/conference.htm1